At Arizona Hearing Center, we emphasize the importance of getting your hearing aids cleaned and checked every six months — even if everything already sounds great. Without the patient noticing, there could be possible debris in the microphones, tubing or wax guard causing a dampening of sound.

During a clean-and-check, your hearing care professional will conduct several different procedures, depending on the particular hearing aid. The appointment also gives the patient and provider a perfect opportunity to touch base and discuss how things are going with the hearing aid (e.g. hearing better, struggling in certain situations, etc.) and the patient’s ear health in general.

What should I expect from the clean-and-check?

1. Sanitization

Before any type of maintenance is performed on the device, the earmold or dome will be sanitized with an alcohol prep pad.

2. Listening Check

A listening check will then be conducted to establish the current quality and volume of sound.

3. Cleaning

Depending on the device, the microphones will then be vacuumed. Sometimes the hearing aid will be disassembled for a more thorough cleaning of the microphones. If a patient has a hearing aid with a wax guard, this will be replaced, and the receiver will be vacuumed out. Domes will also be replaced at each clean-and-check appointment. If the hearing aid has an earmold and tube, the tube will be replaced and the vent (when applicable) will be cleaned of any debris. Finally, the hearing aid will be placed in our vacuum chamber to help pull moisture from all of its parts.

4. Further Testing

During a clean and check appointment, a diagnostic test box measure can be conducted to troubleshoot any problems with the hearing aid. Once the device has been fully cleaned, a final listening check will be conducted to make sure things are sounding as good as before — if not better.

After all of that, the hearing-care professional will return the hearing aids and explain to the patient what they performed and replaced.

To get more information or schedule your next clean-and-check, reach out to Arizona Hearing Center by phone at 602.313.1243 or by email at Scheduling@Azhear.Com.